It's Time to Give Your Online Catalog a Facelift

It's Time to Give Your Online Catalog a Facelift

Katie Brosious

Michael Fienen

Who is Katie? About Katie:  • BS in Journalism & an MBA in marketing from the University of

Kansas. • She has been working for AllofE Solutions for almost 3 years • Lives in Lawrence, Kan. with her fiance and golden retriever,

Murphy. • Great passion for helping HE pro's become more efficient using

web-based systems. • Has been project lead on the catalog management project since

the very beginning when Michael started making her life crazy.

About AllofE Solutions: • Software R&D company HQ'ed in Lawrence, Kan.• Our enterprise-level systems are used by hundreds of the world's

largest, leading companies• We build software for software product companies • Heavily focused on the education sector (both K-12 and higher

education)• One of the most comprehensive and deepest product suites within

this sector• Has been involved in pioneering web-based systems

for universities for over a decade 

Who is Michael? About Michael:  • Director of Web Marketing for Pittsburg State University (Kansas)• CTO at nuCloud (http://www.nucloud.com/)• Staff writer for .eduGuru • Author of dotCMS From the Ground Up• Spent more than the past 5 years at PSU, with over a decade of

web development experience• Loves mobile, accessibility, UI/UX, and content• I like good theatre, good fountain pens, and bad movies. Long

walks on the beach optional.

About nuCloud, LLC: • Providing low cost SaaS solutions for higher ed• Our team has nearly two decades of combined higher education

web experience• Same people behind eduRank and the award winning higher ed

blog .eduGuru• Focused on creating solutions to real world problems faced by

universities• Currently offering interactive maps, social media mashups, and

catalog management systems - with more in the planning stages

twitter: @fienen

How have catalogs worked?

• Paper Trail• Revisions, Revisions, Revisions • PDF's• Maintenance Problems• Manipulating Content Management Systems

Catalog Archive Formats

Tools in Use

Who's looking for a [new] solution?

Some survey comments..."Currently both of our catalogs are in split pdf's, which is a pain for everyone involved. I'm in the process of talking with the Dean's Office to convert to an HTML set-up, but it's very daunting!"

"There was an attempt to create a home-grown system at one point in the past, but it proved to be somewhat convoluted because of the amorphous nature of the catalog content."

"...Our process is broken and cumbersome. Print is produced in Quark and then we (web) are given PDF - haven't figured out way to feasibly reverse-engineer it into text/xml/html/anything..."

"We have a print document that gets converted to PDF, then I'm told to 'post it online'.  That's our online catalog.  Yay."

Get all the results at:

http://bit.ly/catalogsurvey

The Value of an Online Catalog

• Cost centerso Printing costso Mailing costso 3rd party costso Concurrent web editing timeo Paper for proofso Toner from proofs

What If...?

• Postage goes up?• Your 3rd-party designer raises rates $50/hour?• Your printer rates go up?

http://bit.ly/catalogcalc

Doing it smarter

• Annual budgets and Maintenance cost• Paper Trail• Workflow• Software• 2 for 1 - Managing print and web from one place

CatalogM: Why it's different

• Background: Content Management and Curriculum Management

• Flexibility• Integration• Focus on intuitivity• Comprehensive feature set• Most advanced yet more affordable• Customiz-ability - ability to meet unique needs

Demo: CatalogM

Next StepsContact 

Michael - info@nucloud.comor 

Katie - kbrosious@allofe.com

if you are interested in learning more about this project or implementing it at your university.

Download the .eduGuru Survey Results:http://bit.ly/catalogsurvey

Use the Savings Calculator:http://bit.ly/catalogcalc